Ides of Light
by LaPetiteCafe
Summary: She found him carving out a wooden figurine, away from the laughter of all the other kids. A decade or so later, she would find him again inside a lonely boy with a giant gourd strapped to his back. She didn't believe in reincarnation, but it had been so long since she last saw the puppeteer.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** _I do not own Naruto - it purely belongs to Masashi Kishimoto._

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 _Wh – where am I – I?  
._

 _._

 _._

 _…_ _Father?_

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Boisterous laughter, a late gasp, then silence._

 ** _Carefully treading through the gray mist, a grand hall opens up._**

 _He sits on an iron throne of dying red petals._

 ** _Tall candles sigh dark smoke into the air, the scent is pungent and perturbing._**

 _A red hand pierces the thick clouds surrounding his visage and come into view, they uncurl to drop a corpse onto the fallen tapestry._

 ** _The trespasser stares –_**

 _he laughs again._

 ** _The room turns dark._**

 _"_ _Why do you persist?" the voice rumbles –_

 ** _white light pours from his pedestal._**

 _Finally, his whole appearance comes into view._

 ** _He sits on an iron throne of dying red petals, his skin is a deep rouge, and he is blind._**

 _"_ _You have seen what most mortals have not, have lived and lingered on the earth longer than they have," he pauses. "Why do you persist? Why does he offer you another chance?"_

 ** _The trespasser is silent, puzzled and wondering, then finally; "Who are you?"_**

 _Laughter again, but there is acid laced into the sound as fumes of purple seep from his mouth._

 ** _There are no words to describe the golden shaft materializing in his hand._**

 _"_ _To many, hope," his unseeing eyes lock onto his trespasser's location._

 ** _"_** ** _To you, life."_**

 _._

 _._

 _._

"-let me see her!"

"sir, you need to – "

"She's _mine."_

"Sir…"

"She's mine."

A strangled sob.

"She's mine."

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There is no memory past the warm cocoon that she remembers, but she knows that there had been a life before this one. She had died, she knows this too, and now is all but a babe again. Her mind is trapped in the body of a child, and she doesn't know if this was to be normal in the afterlife or if this was reincarnation she was facing. She has a mind of an adult but the body of a child and she doesn't know what scares her the most; her lack of memories or the fact that she had _died._ Within her time in the soft cocoon, she had never had the time to ponder over it. The time she had spent in there was something special albeit tiring.

There is a man insistent on staying by her bedside, and briefly she wonders if this is her new father, or if he was her previous one come to living in this strange afterlife. But until she experiences pain, until she bleeds – she won't know if this is all real or not. All she can do is mourn over the thought that she will never remember her old family, wherever they may be. This was a new world, she was a stranger, and it frightened her so very much.

" _Mo – Moriko,"_ the man stumbles over to her, hands hesitantly hoovering over her whimpering body. She's ashamed to be inconveniencing this man, but she cannot help it. The walls she remembers once building aren't there anymore, and her tiny body is too fragile and innocent to understand the concept of masks and impenetrable facades to ward the cries away. She is sorry but at the same time, she is finding peace as she mourns over the life she cannot recall.

The man constantly mumbles a name, and as she drifts off to sleep, she reluctantly buries the only piece left of her past. She is Moriko now, the girl she once was is dead – this name would be her new identity, her new person.

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This, she swears to the man who has stayed with her from the beginning.

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 **A/N:** _This will be the last story I post until I finish one of my on-going stories, but if you're new -welcome! Hope you liked the short prologue!_

 _Now let me just say that I've been a faithful reader of Naruto since 2003 and this OC and plot had been born around 2006. This is not one of those famed SI stories (although I am itching to try one out one day) - this is just merely a reincarnation one. This is a dream that I am finally able to write down and share and am hoping that many will grow to like as well. If not, well, I tried :) Oh, and I apologize for any grammatical errors because this will also be my first attempt at writing in present-tense for the majority of a story - so not only am I fulfilling my dream, but I am also challenging myself by stepping out of past tense._

 _PS. I will only go by the manga as it is the only thing I've ever truly stuck by and loved completely. Except for maybe the over-the-top-power boosts everyone gets in the end._


	2. Chapter 2

"Sshhh."

"But –"

"Stop."

"I worry –"

" _Dad._ "

"Moriko."

"Here," she presses her palm against his chest, but doesn't feel the erratic pulse of his heart. She realizes she doesn't like him in that tan flak jacket, but she knows that if he _knew_ her dislike of it – it would come off. In a snap, a second, a half-pulse fast tick of the clock. Because her dad was her Dad, and he would always hold her above everything else. Even above the lives of others

...

War ravages their world and despite the large walls protecting the village from its wrath, some essence of it still manages to seep past the stone gates and find homes in distraught families and crippled soldiers. It is this war, that allows Moriko and many other students to excel through the academy in record speed. No one questions the ethical practice behind it because there is none. There is war, and their village needed fighters. Moriko's father, who had been a stranger to the field since her birth, deployed with a reconnaissance unit a few days ago before the date of her graduation with empty promises to return on time to celebrate her new milestone.

Moriko had never told him to stop giving white lies. She didn't see a need to once she saw the way her father clung onto them for hope. Hope for what, she did not know. So she sits in a chair rooted to the ashen floor, waiting, watching, counting the sparse clouds in the sky. Their year's sensei had been sent off to fight a month ago with no instructions or farewell for them to hear. As a whole, the academy saw the disappearance of half their personnel and the appearance of rotating substitutes with various levels of arrogance.

She hardly catches the last syllables of her name which signal her to rerieve her headband. The metal is cool to the touch and finds home in her pocket. Three more children follow after her; there are a total of thirteen graduates from her class. An uneven number, but she doubts they would be filtered into the three man squads as dictated by tradition. Cannon fodder, that is what they are. She wonders how many of them realize this too. But then again, she looks at the faces in the seats around her; less than a handful of them deserved the promotion. The rest, like her, are just shy of being geniuses and more of perceptive if anything.

"...you will receive orders on where to go or who to report to tomorrow morning. Congratulations," the sighing man has only been their teacher for three days. He is nondescript and gentle compared to the previous two who had sent two of her classmates to the hospital. "Don't die."

Dismissed.

Moriko is one of the first genin to stumble out into blistering heat, her green yukata flowing easily with her movement. There is nothing but home on her mind now.

" _Rikoooo-chaan!"_

Her feet halt and twist on their own accord. They know better to ignore that voice, and she nods to the boy and his parents in the shade of a building. A joyous shout congratulates her on her newest accomplishment while a gruff palm ruffles her dark hair. "You should join us for dinner, Moriko," Chiyo's soft spoken son suggests. When Moriko thinks of Chiyo, she only recalls a crazy, crass lady who frequently visits her and her father's apartment with threats to make him her pupil again. In reality, Moriko knew the old lady was just concerned over her father's health with her knowledgeable experience with dealing with him as his first senses. To this day, she marvels over how her father had ever exactly survived in a squad with Crazy Chiyo and Misao.

But at the moment, she just wants to protest, their home contained more than enough personalities to intrude upon, but the wife is exuberant and has never taken her no as an answer. She places a hand on her back and guides their group towards an older street full of aging buildings and quiet bustling. "Congratulations on graduating too, Sasori." Moriko quietly says, his mother talks loudly enough to only spare their exchange a grin. Moriko is all levels of surprised that her father had been in a squad with this woman and lived to tell the tale.

The boy dips his head in acknowledgement and resumes listening to his father's chatter about the newest advancements in the puppet corps, a division created by his own mom. "Frightening things, really."

"I like them enough," Sasori admits, glancing at Moriko. He has only been to her house twice, and both times, took company with her father's puppets rather than her. Her, who dislikes anything with vacant stares and abysmal mouths.

"Boys and their dolls," Misao jeers, she places a hand on the girl's shoulder and steers her towards the kitchen. "We'll cook dinner while you two keep up that boring conversation, okay?" she says, laughing at her son's frown and husband's rolling eyes.

Their home is three stories large and all degrees of welcoming. The kitchen counter is littered with various ingredients which Misao instructs her to sort through. vegetables on the left, condiments next t them, and anything else on the right. Moriko is diligent as Misao keeps up a steady speech about her neighbors and Chiyo's latest trouble. "Sasori may be a year older than you and had graduated from a different class, but you two can still be in the same squad if you want."

Moriko's large eyes blink. Misao grins, "I know my son - he's as stuck up as they come, but he likes you well enough, and," she pauses, a mother's fondness creeping into her expression. It makes Moriko itch in her seat, but she remains listening to the woman's words. "It would be wonderful to see the new generation of the Izusao squad, wouldn't it?" Izusao. Misao and Izumo, her father. They never talk about the other person in their three man cell, but Moriko has spied his face in countless photographs to understand that he had not been as fortunate as his two comrades in the shinobi life.

"He will come back, Moriko. Izumo is many things, but he is not one to abandon those he loves." The older woman's words shatter her train of thoughts as she finishes organizing the ingredients. She does not need the reassurance, but she nods anyway.

"I would like to be in Sasori's squad," she starts, looking away from the sparkling woman's eyes. "But I will have to decline, Misao-san. I am under the consideration for being placed into the village's weaponry wing."

"That's because you like swords, right?" it is not Misao who inquires, but her son. Sasori stands in the doorway with his arms behind his back. Close.

"That too but," she slides her gaze towards Misao. "But I like the yumi better."

"A bow?" Misao chitters as she starts cutting some garlic. Sasori joins Moriko in the kitchen and sits on the stool next to hers. His hands reveal a wooden figurine in clothes identical to her own. "That is...traditional, and _old,"_ she stares at her outfit, as if listening to its echo of the simpler, feudal days.

"It's from Chiyo-obaa-san." Sasori speaks as his mother turns around and lights a fire. "I can show you how to make it move," he offers.

Puppetry.

"It will look nice on my desk."

"You hear that boy?" someone guffaws from behind them. The hairs on her arms rise but Moriko manages a polite nod to the elderly woman before them. "I knew I liked you for a reason," Chiyo squeezes her bicep before moving onto her grandson. She gives him a dileberate smack on the back before moving onto hover behind her daughter-in-law. They exchange words too quiet to hear and send the two children back into the living room with a _shoo_ of their hands. They take the dismissal with grace and Moriko plays with the proposal in her hands.

"She asked?" the voice does not startle, but Moriko is careful to steady her heart before looking at those oolong brown eyes. They are too large on his young face, larger than hers, but – she nods her head just as there is a sound of conscious footsteps heading towards them. They both look up, ages seven and six respectively as Sasori's father saunters in with much too familiar clothes on. Moriko takes the hint to retreat into the observant elderly woman's presence. Sasori's mother joins his father, her eyes just a bit dimmer than before. She knows this scene and turns away.

"Should we finish dinner?" she asks the old woman.

A spark, then a nod.

Sasori joins them an hour later, sans parents.

She knows, when they look back on this day – only she will remember what they had for dinner. She knows, and keeps the wooden figurine on the edge of her desk. Untouched. Frozen in time.

…

There is considerate knock on the door, and a skeleton with familiar eyes. Moriko blinks slowly and kicks the thin covers off of her small frame.

"No, no, it's fine." A lie. A familiar white lie, that has her drowsily pushing past her father's gaunt arms and shuffling towards her closet.

"The fridge is empty," she makes an attempt to steer his protests away, and for a while, she can imagine him opening and closing his mouth, only to ultimately settle down on her vacated bed. She changes quickly in the moonlight and grabs her pink kitten purse from the drawer of her desk. His lips twitch, and she takes it, as well as his hand – and guides both of them back out he door of their apartment. "Ramen or barbeque?"

There is no pause: "Ramen."

The sporadic lamplight and moonlight guide them towards their nighttime haunt. The ramen stand is empty save for the cook and his son. Their eyes are warm and vacant of inquiries as they begin their orders. Moriko and her father quietly take the last two stools on the right – her own body squeezed between the wall and her father. Although, she ponders, there is not much left of him to guard her side.

"You can't visit Sasori for a while, Moriko," her father begins to twiddle with the wooden chopsticks. "He will be living with Chiyo-sama while his parents are away." The chopsticks are broken into two. "She lives by the cliffs, that old hag." There is no humor or hate in his tone. There is nothing but facts, and she nods.

Two bowl of hot ramen are dropped in front of them. The son is about to move away, but something catches his eye. "Were you out training, Moriko-chan?" he asks.

At first, she does not know what he is referring to until her father picks out the glint of silver that had caught both of their attention. "You graduated?!" the son grins and calls over his father, who is much too conspicuous with his eavesdropping. "Congratulations, Moriko-chan!" he exclaims, and drops a sizzling dish of yakitori by her bowl. "It's on the house!" he winks, before pushing his son out towards arriving patrons.

Moriko stares at the new dish while her father thumbs the metal plating. "You graduated…"

"Just this afternoon." Moriko decide to start with her ramen first and slurps up a few noodles. Better to let the meat cool before shoving it up her mouth. There is a lengthy pause, and when they finally finish and pay for their meals, Moriko pretends to forget her father's lack of congratulations. They head home, bed and sleep the only things left in their mind.

The following morning, a loud raven-haired boy disrupts her morning stretches. Her father is still sleeping, and she had just finished making him breakfast a few minutes ago.

"Kazuo-sensei told me to pick you up!" He did not have to yell, and she did not have the energy to tell him otherwise. The boy bends down, although their heights aren't that far apart. She is relatively tall for her age, and she suspects her growth spurt will jump on her sooner than later.

"You're short!"

"Are we leaving now?" Nameless raven boy has a bandana tied around his forehead and his village headband around his neck. He has dark beady eyes that shamelessly judge her.

"You're boring." He crosses his arms and leans against the doorway. "I'll wait here, but I would hurry if I were you. Kazuo-sensei is very punctual." Moriko is already reassigned to having her loud teammate unabashedly force himself into her home. She is half way down the hall before she thinks to ask: "When is he expecting us?"

There is a lazy grin on Raven boy's face that has her frown. "An hour and a half ago."


	3. Chapter 3

He had watched his child grow during the first few years of her life. Had refused missions, the calls of his friends, only to be by her side because he knew what a precious thing life was and how easily people of his occupation were stripped away from its flowing river. So he clung onto Moriko's first few years like a shadow to its person. He taught her how to walk, talk, protect – everything. He wanted Moriko to recognize that he would give her everything, arm her with all the weapons in the world, in order to save her. However, when the call for war sounded and he had to leave the child by herself, he fretted over what would happen in his absence. He was no fool despite his sunlit vision of her future. Moriko was smart, had always been smart. She had developed motor skills faster than his books expected her to, had started reading pronouncing words that were garbled by her infant tongue – Moirko was smart, and he had armed her with everything except with the ability to protect herself from her own being.

When he went off to war, he charged his old classmate with the responsibility to look after her. At first, she was appalled that he had even thought of leaving her to her own devices, but he knew his daughter best and that giving her off to live under a different roof would push her past her limits. So he begged her to just watch and make sure that the world treated her right, because he did not want anyone to know about his daughter with the all-too-knowing eyes. Misao begrudgingly agreed to the terms, and when he was on the field resting, he took out the letters delivered by her summons and carefully read between the lines.

 _Something is strange about her…_

… _she didn't go to class for the past week, but she passed her literary exam._

 _Your daughter…_

… _.is she okay all by herself?_

He wished that the war was over so he could return home and assuage Misao's worries and rectify Moriko's attitude, but war was a transcendent thing and he knew no life that thrived without it. He thought of ashes, wondered about their taste, and decided that the letters served only as distractions and should be put away. And so he did. He stopped responding them, sending, receiving them, and temporarily forgot about the person who his daughter was evolving into. It was a selfish thing to ignore his duty as a parent, yet he still did so.

When he returned home for a short leave, she had already been accelerated through the academy and had a bright silver band around her head. She told him it was bothersome, the graduation, the school, and instantly took it off the following day after having not received a proper congratulations from him; belatedly he realizes he should have said something, but Moriko never liked his white lies, as conspicuous as they were.

After she had been collected by her teammates the following day, he ventured into her room and found the shiny, new headband discarded on the floor, half hidden by the shadows of her bed. He should have picked it up, told her to be more careful and wear it with pride, but then he remembered the war, the burn of fire, and pushed the headband under her bed. It remained there even when she was promoted to chunin and was only joined by the green flak jacket the night she came home from her team's celebration dinner. Again, he mentioned nothing about the controversial action and committed himself to just protecting her, preparing her for the world.

He got a note two weeks later and flew to the main building as fast as he could. He bypassed the secretary and stationed guards with ease as he shot into the room containing the Kazekage and his daughter. Inside, it was hot and heavy with feelings he couldn't thoroughly decipher. He briefly noted the Kazekage's presence, but his true attention laid with his daughter. She hadn't spared him a glance since his entrance, but he supposed her rigidity concerning proper decorum had always been unrelenting. He looked over at the other occupants of the room, Sasori, Chiyo and Ebizo.

"Welcome, boy!" The old hag cackled, she gestured over at his daughter. "Your legacy exceeds you!"

"Moriko has been assigned on a mission with Sasori and you are one of members of the only surviving unit from the _Chikai_ investigation," the Kazekage began without pretense. "It seems _Cha no Kuni,_ is trespassing again. Tell them what you know, they will be conducting a new investigation there."

"Are we operating on an assumption or –"

"We have a spy within our I&T department already but no ground has been gained," a long white tendril of smoke puffed out of the Kazekage's pipe. "Will that be all, Izumo?"

He bent his head. "Yes, Lord Kazekage."

His daughter and the red-haired young man rose first and walked past him. He trailed after them without a word, and later on, he realized that this was the mistake. Shadows were never meant to protect their loved ones.

He had sent his daughter and her partner with all the knowledge him and his unit had gathered about the Land of Tea. It was not much, the people of that area had buried their secrets deep and knowledge about a minor operating military unit was only discovered after the loss of three lives and one friend's eyesight. That land was a peaceful place until the ashes were stirred and an ember was aggravated to start a wildfire. He beseeched his daughter to tread with care, but he knew that his words fell on deaf ears as she sauntered past the door and into the light of the rising sun. They were not supposed to depart until later on in the morning, but she had always favored punctuality and earliness. He wondered if he should have followed her then because the empty fridge and untouched bed warranted more than his parental worries, but he did not. And that too, was another slight on his part.

One afternoon, when he was with Chiyo, a genin had visited them with a report. The archaic crone taunted him with the knowledge inside, but at the end of the day, she shared with him the progress of the investigation. Moriko had been compromised, but her nephew had saved his daughter and she was safe again. The Kazekage wanted to denounce her relation to the village just in case they had traced her lineage back with them, but his decision had been halted by Ebizo's preach for careful action and Chiyo's lack of an answer. She gave him one last look before she rambled about nightmares and jars.

"And that is the saddest thing in the world, Izumo-kun," she told him, staring at the high dune walls. "That we make our nightmares pretty things we think we can contain."

He didn't know what she had been ranting about, figuring it was survivor's guilt or some mission's mistake haunting her, but was glad that she had advised the Kazekage to refrain from attacking so drastically and impeding the potential of one of his most prospective shinobi. She jeered that while Moriko was as careless as her father, she also had a fire within her that promised great things. She calmed his worries with promises about telling her nephew to temper her out.

Izumo had done a great number of terrible things in his life and wondered if this was one of his punishments. It had been almost two months since he or anyone from the village had received word about the Land of Tea and its shinobi entrapped inside. He had gone as far as requesting a recon deployment from the Kazekage but was quickly rejected. He had since been sent after trails and missions all over the land and across villages that were not within proximity with the Land of Tea. He had cursed the Kazekage's name in his sleep but decided that his leader knew best and that he did not want to impede on his daughter's reputation. Shadows were meant to stay close to their person, but if the fire was too bright, then they were not needed at all. He was not needed at all. He kept that mantra repeating in his mind. His daughter did not need him. He delved into a side of his mind that focused on missions and protocol. She was fine. Moriko was fine.

And that was, perhaps, the biggest mistake he had made in his parental responsibilities; ignoring that being a parent meant not being capable of more love than fear. It was the opposite. Being a parent meant that he would always have more fear than love, and he never could have imagined that it would hurt him to realize that.

Three weeks later, Moriko was back home, alone, but home.

Sasori had left her at the border, no one had seen him enter the village, and for all the population knew, Sasori was a master puppeteer's name that floated around but was never given an actual face. Moriko was mute when she arrived, dropped head first into her bed and rose the next morning with the sun only to leave and give the Kazekage her report. When it reached evening again, he wondered where she was but was stopped by Chiyo knocking at his door. He recalled the rumors and inquired about her son, but she was tight-lipped and red-eyed. She pushed him into the kitchen, told him to shut up, and cooked dinner.

His daughter still had not returned after the old hag had left.

He should have left to go look for her, but thought that mission aches were sometimes best remedied by time spent in isolation. But he was a father, and her fire had quelled enough to allow for a shadow to follow her around. He decided then that he was still the parental figure and his daughter needed guidance. He stood up and left the apartment.

Sunagakure's nights were always chilly despite the day's wrathful warmth. He allowed his feet to guide him towards his daughter, and like a shadow, he found her standing on the border wall. He wondered if she was on patrol duty and asked it out loud.

She didn't move for a brief moment, and he opened his mouth to call out to her again until she finally turned.

Moriko. His pride, joy, and legacy. She was a chunin when he last saw her, and he wondered if her most recent excursion had allowed her to rise again through the ranks and become a jounin. He would not be surprised if that was the case. She was always a cut ahead of others. Of him.

He walked closer to her, basking in the night breeze and Sunagakure's peace. It had been a long time since the war, and he wondered if there really was such a thing as peace that could happen now. He smiled at Moriko. "How have you been, Moriko?" He felt like a stranger, not that a parent should ever feel like a stranger, but he pushed through the awkwardness and looked down at his daughter. His small light. She was still so young. She would do great things.

"You always lied since I was young," Moriko spoke quietly. Her voice was that of chimes, but the weight of her words was heavier than the moon and he could not control the faltering step he took.

"Moriko?" he tried another smile. His daughter, so strange, always knowing – where were her thoughts?

"White lies. You had a lot of them, said a lot of them," she continued. "I always wondered if you would grow tired of them, but I guess that wouldn't be a problem if they came out from one big lie, right?" Her sharp eyes turned on him.

"I always wondered if the life I was living was a lie, but I learned that it was not the case, no."

Izumo recalled fire, and burns and pain.

"The lie was not me, it was with you," she said. "You made me a lie. Moriko is a lie."

Since she was born, he had trained her, protected her, and armed her with all of the world's arsenal. He had forgotten that words were as sharp as blades and that sentiment was the weakness of all in the world. He trained Moriko so that one day, when he passed, she would be able to protect herself when he could not.

He looked at his daughter. Too much. She always seemed to know too much.

She also moved fast, and it was quick – the unsheathing of the kunai from her pouch and the swift arc itt graced through before piecing him through his chest. He looked at his daughter, his beloved, his life, joy, and legacy.

And finally understood what ashes tasted like.


End file.
